Porting a new device to Replicant is a long task, so make sure you're ready to go through all the steps mentioned below. While it's not technically hard (unless you have to write free software replacements yourself), the process itself takes time as many steps are involved:

The phone has a GSM modem: Replicant doesn't support CDMA phones (but you can add support for it if you're skilled)

There is a way of installing another operating system, either through the bootloader or via recovery (this is likely if there is a CM port)

The kernel is not signed: this means that the bootloader doesn't check the kernel's signature to match with the vendor's key to allow it to run

If your device fails to comply with one of these requirements, it won't be possible to port Replicant to it.If you don't know about whether your device complies or not, you'll probably learn it along the way.

First of all, you'll have to find out the device's codename that was given by its manufacturer. Wikipedia usually has that information on the device's article. For instance, the codename for the European version of the Nexus S given by Samsung is i9023. This codename will help in the process of getting informations about the device.

Then, a second codename (that can turn out the be the same as the previous one) is given to the device at Android-level. If your device is supported by CyanogenMod, you can find it out from the CyanogenMod Wiki or on CyanogenMod download page. For instance, the Nexus S codename is: crespo.

It is useful to have a general idea of what kind of hardware is present in the phone. From the Wikipedia and CyanogenMod pages about the device, it's already possible to know what System on a Chip (SoC) it uses and a couple other details.

To learn more details, you can consider looking for a teardown of the device (for instance on iFixit), that will reveal what chips are used on the device. Looking at the kernel defconfig for the device will also help a lot, you can also try to find the service manual for the device.

You can then compare that to the devices that are already supported in Replicant to get an idea of what will possibly work.

One very important step is to find out if the device is Tivoized: that means that even though the manufacturer releases the kernel source code for the device, the bootloader checks the kernel signature and will refuse to start it if it's not properly signed by the manufacturer. In other words, if you build the kernel yourself, the device will refuse to run it since it's not signed by the manufacturer. Since the Linux kernel is released under the GPLv2, there are no specific dispositions to counter Tivoization, and so porting the device to Replicant is pointless as it will require a prebuilt and signed kernel from the manufacturer.

This is not an easy information to find out, but the developers involved in the CyanogenMod port will probably know that information. It's a good idea to just ask them.

To install the future Replicant image on the device, you have to find out how the device can be flashed with a new operating system. The CyanogenMod Wiki has install guides for the supported devices and you'll probably find install guides for non-official CM ports as well. It is very important to understand the flashing procedure as it will have to be documented on the Replicant wiki.

There are basically two ways of flashing a new operating system:

Through the bootloader: a program has to send the images to the phone in bootloader mode. Make sure that program is free if your device supports flashing via bootloader.

With recovery: a recovery image has to be installed instead of the current kernel so that at next reboot, recovery permits the installation of another operating system. Make sure this doesn't involve rooting the phone using non-free software.

The key information to get before starting the port is the list of the non-free components that are required by CyanogenMod.The easiest way to do this is to spot the device repository in CyanogenMod repos and look for the extract-files.sh or proprietary-blobs.txt file on the ics branch.There is usually a link to the device repository from the CyanogenMod Wiki

Once your Replicant tree is ready, you can start adding the necessary repos for your device.That means cloning the necessary repos in the right place. These repos are:

A device-specific repo. On CyanogenMod, it is usually called: android_device_vendor_device.

Sometimes one or more common repo(s), usually called: android_device_vendor_devices-common.Some devices don't need any common repo, but some do.

A kernel repo. On CyanogenMod, it is usually called: android_kernel_samsung_devices.The kernel repo can be shared across a family of devices (for instance, on kernel repo for Samsung Exynos, one for Samsung OMAP, etc).

You can find the device-specific repo from the device's page on the CyanogenMod Wiki. Make sure you check out the branches that match the CM 9.0 version (the branch may be called ics).

Once you have cloned the device-specific repo for your device and checked out the correct branch, refer to the cm.dependencies file to find what repos are left to clone.Clone these repos in the correct locations and remove the prefix (e.g. android_device_samsung_crespo must be cloned in device/samsung/ and renamed to crespo).

If your cloned the kernel source for your device, it is likely that the kernel build is already integrated, so you can skip the next sections below.

If the kernel repo is nowhere to be found (make sure you've asked the CyanogenMod team), you'll need to get the kernel source directly from the vendor, especially if your device is supported by a 3rd party CyanogenMod fork.Keep in mind that the Linux kernel is GPLv2, so vendors have the legal obligation to release the modified kernel sources as soon as they sell you the device.That means the kernel sources will be available online. Here are some websites where such releases are done:

Samsung Open Source Release CenterFor Samsung kernels. Search the device codename (e.g. I9000) and download the package called "Opensource Update" (e.g. GT-I9000_Opensource_GB_Update2.zip).This will hold a kernel archive with all the sources and instructions on how to build it and which defconfig to use.

Once you have the kernel sources, read the instructions to find out which defconfig to use.

Since manufacturers usually don't release the git history along with the files, you'll need to recreate a git repo:

Clone the mainline kernel in the same version as the Makefile from the sources you just obtained

Remove the cloned files except the .git directory

Move the manufacturer kernel tree at the place of the files you just removed

Add all the files in git (git add -A) and commit (git commit) with a message explaining what you just imported (e.g. "GT-I9000 GB Opensource Update 2")

Now that you have a git repo, you can move it to the Replicant code tree, under the name: kernel/vendor/devices (e.g. kernel/samsung/aries).Make sure to make the devices name match the devices in android_device_vendor_devices-common if the kernel is shared across these devices or to match the device in android_device_vendor_device.

Some devices are still using a prebuilt kernel. Even though the CyanogenMod team is trying to avoid that, it remains in many repos.For such devices, you will need to remove the prebuilt binaries and the instructions to copy the prebuilt kernel and its modules.

In the device repository (device/vendor/device) and common repository for your device (if any), remove the prebuilt kernel and modules (usually called kernel and module.ko (replace module with the name of a module) or a modules directory).Remove the instructions to copy these prebuilts on the makefiles. Remove instructions such as:

Now that the repos are cloned, you need to modify some makefiles to cope with Replicant paths.In the device repository (device/vendor/device), modify the file called cm.mk and replace the vendor/cm/ occurrences by vendor/replicant/. Other makefiles may need that as well (in any case, build will fail very early if you missed one). In that same cm.mk file, change the PRODUCT_NAME variable by replacing the cm prefix with replicant (e.g. change PRODUCT_NAME := cm_crespo to PRODUCT_NAME := replicant_crespo).

Now that your device files are ready, you can declare a new build target: these are held in vendor/replicant/jenkins-build-targets.Modify that file and add a line (at the end) with the PRODUCT_NAME you set and the -eng suffix (e.g. replicant_crespo-eng).

From now on, everything should be ready to start a build. To check for errors or missed occurrences, start a terminal in the Replicant tree root and lunch:

source build/envsetup.sh
lunch replicant_device-eng

Adapt replicant_device-eng from what you added to the jenkins-build-target (e.g. replicant_crespo-eng).If an error occurs, it will explicitly report it and you'll need to fix it before doing anything.If everything works correctly, you should see something like:

Now that everything is set-up, you can build the first image to test on your device: the recovery image.

The build target is recoveryimage, so all you have to do is:

make -j9 recoveryimage

This should trigger the kernel build and the recovery initramfs build and in the end, produce the out/target/product/device/recovery.img file.Once your image is built (it takes some time), flash it to the recovery partition of your device (if any). It's a good idea to look at the CyanogenMod installation guide to find out how to install that recovery image.

There is usually also a key combination to hold to boot directly to recovery: hopefully, your recovery image will start.

It is time for you to take a good look at the installation process. Mainly, about whether the images will be flashed using the bootloader or recovery.Since CyanogenMod uses the zip installation method, that we do not want to use, you're on your own here.

If the images have to be flashed using recovery, you must make sure they are built in yaffs2 format, with the default page and spare sizes.Make sure to remove the following lines from BoardConfig.mk (even though the values might be different):

BOARD_NAND_PAGE_SIZE := 4096
BOARD_NAND_SPARE_SIZE := 128

Add the following to have yaffs2 images:

TARGET_USERIMAGES_USE_EXT4 := false

Even though the images are built as yaffs2, it doesn't mean that the filesystem on the device will be yaffs2: you have to set the correct filesystem, amongst: ext4, yaffs2 in the built image file name.That means you have to change the target images names. This is done by adding the following line (adapted for your device) on BoardConfig.mk:

BOARD_CUSTOM_USERIMG_MK := device/vendor/device/userimg.mk

You need to create the userimg.mk file on the device main repository, with the following contents (adapt the target name):

Building the system is the longest task. The build target is systemimage:

make -j9 systemimage

You might encounter build errors due to the lack of non-free libs. You'll need to find clean workarounds for that. Removing options from BoardConfig.mk can help solve the situation.For instance, the following error:

make: *** No rule to make target `out/target/product/i9300/obj/lib/libTVOut.so', needed by `out/target/product/i9300/obj/EXECUTABLES/mediaserver_intermediates/LINKED/mediaserver'. Stop.

Was solved by turning BOARD_USE_SECTVOUT to false:

BOARD_USE_SECTVOUT := false

Once the systemimage is built, you have to build the userdataimage if you're going to flash using the bootloader:

make -j9 userdataimage

When all the images are built, you're ready for flashing the images.Some more steps are required for recovery flashing:

Create a directory on the root of the usb storage (or sdcard) of the phone

Copy the images and the md5 checksum to the newly-created directory

Install the images using the flash images menu

Wipe data using wipe data/factory resert

Reboot the device: reboot system now

If everything was correctly setup, this should succeed. The best way to make sure it booted is to run adb logcat and wait for an output.That early, it is very likely that graphics will be broken, so don't expect anything to show up on the screen: only adb is a reliable way of knowing whether it worked.

Keep in mind that all the make (and such) commands must be run in a terminal where lunch has been executed before.

Once you have a Replicant image installed on the device, there is no need to rebuild a whole image everytime you make a change (but it's a good idea to do it from time to time): you can instead rebuild only a single module by using (where module is the module's name):

make module

Even better, you can build the module that sits in the current directory by simply using mm. To push the new library to the device, use adb push (you'll need to adb remount the first time).

Moreover, instead of rebooting, you can kill the Android applications (zygote, surfaceflinger, rild) depending on what you are working on.For instance for audio:

libEGL: the OpenGL implementation (that's what uses the GPU to accelerate graphics)

Generally speaking, libEGL is non-free while gralloc and hwcomposer might be free software (but they often rely on non-free blobs). On most Replicant-supported phones, we use the default gralloc, the software libEGL and no hwcomposer. We modified the gralloc so that is uses RGB565 on framebuffer, which turns out to be faster than any other format we tried.

However, to have a fluid-enough experience, you need to disable most hardware-accelerated features of Android to enable Software GL.This is done by modifying the cm.mk Makefile on the device repository. Add the following lines after the others inherit calls:

Moreover, you might need to add the Software GL configuration on the egl.cfg file, that is located somewhere in the device repository (perhaps under config/).Add the following line at the beginning of the file (if it's not there already):

If there is no audio support with free software on CyanogenMod, you'll have to find out details about how audio works on your device. There are mainly 3 different cases:

Audio is standard ALSA

Audio is ALSA with a non-standard interface aside

Audio is not ALSA but something else that is not standard

To find out whether your device uses ALSA or not, look if you have the /dev/snd/pcmC0D0c and /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p nodes available. A non-standard interface aside might be indicated by the presence of the /dev/snd/hwC0D0 node.

If your device is standard ALSA, you can use the tinyalsa-audio library (located under hardware/tinyalsa-audio) with a configuration file (an example of such a file is available at device/samsung/galaxys2/configs/tinyalsa-audio.xml). You can find the propers controls to set on which scenario by running tinymix (found under external/tinyalsa) with the non-free blob in place in the different scenarios.

If your device involves a non-standard interface or if it completely relies a non-standard interface, there is no readily available guide to find out how it works, but you can start by looking at the kernel driver and adding debug prints (with printk) there and figure out what is going on.

Remember to add the working audio module to the build targets (on the makefiles in the device repo).

In order to support telephony, messaging (SMS) and other network-related features (data as well), you need to make the modem work with Replicant. The modem is often called the radio in Android terminology.

The modem uses a protocol to communicate with the CPU. You need to find out which protocol the modem for your device is using. There are several possible cases:

The protocol is AT, which is the only standard protocol, but it's very old: it is mostly plain ASCII and newer modems usually use a binary protocol

The protocol is not standard (vendor-specific) but has been implemented in free software already

The protocol is not standard and has no known free software implementation

To find out which protocol your phone uses, it is a good idea to look at the radio log buffer in CyanogenMod and try to find out from the messages (it may be verbose).The protocol itself is implemented in the RIL (Radio Interface Layer): it is a good idea to take a look at the non-free ril the device uses (get its path with getprop rild.libpath).

If the modem uses the AT protocol, there are many available RIL implementations out there: Android has a reference-ril (hardware/ril/reference-ril) that implements AT and there is the hayes-ril library (located under hardware/ril/hayes-ril/) that makes it easier for you to add support for your device. Though, it is possible that the modem of your device implements undocumented commands, so you'll have to figure these out: the radio log might help a lot if it's verbose, else you'll have to trace the RIL somehow.

If the protocol is not AT, it might still be supported: the FreeSmartphone.Org (FSO) project implements some undocumented protocols. You can also look at oFono.If your phone was manufactured by Samsung, there is a very good chance that it uses the Samsung-IPC protocol, which is implemented in libsamsung-ipc and Samsung-RIL. You will need to add support for your device in libsamsung-ipc (Samsung-RIL is device-independent: all the abstraction is done by libsamsung-ipc), which may be more or less easy depending on whether your modem type is already supported. In any case, you'll need to trace the RIL to find out. There may also be a separate daemon (often called cbd) that is in charge of the modem bootup (that's the biggest part you need to figure out), so that's the thing to trace.

If the protocol implementation is nowhere to be found, you'll have to write a free implementation yourself if you want to have free software support for the modem. It's a good idea to ask around whether other people from other communities, such as XDA or CyanogenMod, would be interested in helping you.

After finding a RIL that may work, add it to the build targets (in the device makefiles) and specify the path to the RIL with rild.libpath (it is often already declared in system.prop in the device repo).

Once the RIL is working, you may need the audio module cooperation to have sound during calls. For instance with Samsung-RIL, you need to use an Audio-RIL-Interface that implements the Samsung-RIL-Socket interface.

When adding support for sensors, look at exactly what you will need to replace. There are several possible scenarios:

A complete free sensors module is already available for your device on the tree from CyanogenMod

An incomplete free sensors module is there and it requires a non-free library to fully work

The sensors module is non-free

Note that sensors may require daemons aside, such as orientationd, geomagneticd, etc. You will most likely need to replace these as well.

If the implementation is incomplete, you will have to write a replacement for the non-free library that is used. For instance, samsung-sensors replaces the non-free libakm and provides free software acceleration sensor results for many Samsung devices.

If there is nothing available, you will have to write a sensors module for you device. You can reuse one from another device and add support for your sensors there.For instance, here is a reference commit of the Galaxy S3 Exynos Sensors module that you may reuse.

Remember to add the working sensors module to the build targets (on the makefiles in the device repo) like it is done on the reference commit.

When there is no free software for your sensors, you have to figure out: how to enable/disable the sensor and set the poll delay (it's often done via sysfs or via ioctl on a dev node). Reading the kernel-side driver of the sensor is a very good idea, you can add debug prints and force values there. You can also find datasheets about your sensor online, which may help you understanding how it works.

The really big part is to figure out how to convert the values that are out of the device (and generally passed through by the kernel driver) into the standard units that the Android framework requires.An effective way to do this is to print the values passed by the kernel driver and look what the non-free sensors module returns. Better yet, you can also trace the non-free module and see exactly what it does, though that won't give you the details of the maths involved.

To find out the maths, open a spreadsheet software, then add the matching kernel values and the one out of the non-free module and try to find an equation that gives the values in standard units from the one returned by the kernel driver. For instance, you might find something like (this is for the LSM330DLC accelerometer):

f(x)=0,0095768072 * x

Once you have this, you may want to find out where that value comes from. In that case, we can see that:

0,0095768072 = 9.80665 / 1024

With 9.80665 being the standard gravity on Earth. Hence, we have:

f(x)=x * GRAVITY_EARTH / 1024

We can guess that 1024 is the resolution of the ADC that provides the sensor value.

Once you have this equation figured out, you're ready to implement this in your free sensors module!

When adding support for the camera, you need to look at what is already there in CyanogenMod:

A camera library with full support is there

A camera wrapper is there but needs a non-free library

A non-free library is used directly

In the first case, you will only have to adjust the preview format to RGB565 and it is also a good idea to lower the preview frame rate. Depending on whether the library already has code to handle RGB565, the difficulty of doing this will change. Here are reference commits that introduce these changes for the Nexus S: libcamera: Use RGB565 preview formatlibcamera: Set preview framerate to 20fpsWe cannot use YUV formats directly because the Android software EGL implementation used in Replicant only supports dealing with the first YUV plane: thus, preview would be black and white only, and probably slower than RGB565.

If there is wrapper, you'll need to replace it by an actual camera module that works. Depending on your hardware, there may be different cases:

The camera is accessed through V4L2, with custom controls and procedure

The camera is accessed through a non-standard interface

In both cases, you'll need to add lots of debug prints to the relevant kernel drivers to figure out how it works. It will be easier if it uses V4L2, as you can already find many implementations of V4L2 out there, but it will very likely need a custom procedure and controls. In the case of a non-standard interface, you're on your own, except if you can find an implementation for a similar interface used on another other device.

Here is a reference commit of the Galaxy S3 Exynos Camera module that uses the Samsung FIMC engine. While it uses V4L2, it needs a custom procedure and custom controls to work properly.

Beware: some camera drivers require the cooperation of the GPU (that seems to be the case on OMAP4). In that case, even a free camera module implementation cannot work on Replicant. Camera drivers may also need to load a non-free firmware, that cannot be distributed with Replicant: hence, you must make sure that the driver will use the pre-installed version of the firmware (if any), burnt on the camera chip in the case loading the non-free firmware from the system fails.

It is very likely that your device requires loaded firmwares for some components of the hardware. These are non-free programs that run separately from the CPU, on other chips. Since Replicant respects its users' freedom, no non-free firmwares are shipped with Replicant. It is possible that CyanogenMod includes shareable non-free firmwares in its tree: you must remove them.

Sometimes, components will crash (and may restart in an endless loop) when attempting to load a firmware that is not shipped with Replicant: you have to spot the code that loads the firmware and make it properly handle the case where the firmware is not available.

Though, you should keep in mind that some users may want to use that firmware, so you have to make the firmware loading possible. There are some exceptions to this however, especially when this involves blocking a free software alternative (this is the case with OMX media decoding). Moreover, firmwares should always be located under /system/vendor/firmware/ so that they are easy to spot and remove when the user decides to get rid of them (after installing them previously).

For instance, the Wi-Fi firmwares path (often declared in the BoardConfig.mk file) have to be changed with the /system/vendor/firmware prefix. The bluetooth firmware path is often declared in the init files (such as init.herring.rc). Make sure to document the new firmwares locations on the wiki: see the Developer guide.

The Linux kernel comes with its own share of firmware: you have to get rid of them too. Mostly, this is about removing the firmwares directory and modifying the Makefile to make it avoid firmwares.Since the procedure is nearly exactly the same on all kernels, here is a reference commit for the changes to add to Makefile: Removed non-free firmwares and related instructions

Most of the time, there is a chip dedicated to decoding media files (audio and video) and it very often requires a non-free loaded firmware. Moreover, it prevents software-only solutions from working, so you need to get rid of the libraries (even though they may be free software) that handle hardware media decoding. This is implemented in the OMX and stagefrighthw libraries. You need to spot and remove these products from the build targets of your device (in the device makefiles).

Not every hardware feature can be supported by Replicant: there are some areas where there is simply no free software available. If this is about a critical component (audio, graphics too slow, telephony) and there is no solution in sight, you might as well consider the port a failure. On the other hand, there are lacks we can leave with, for instance 3D, camera or GPS support: don't let that get in the way of releasing images for your device!

Once your device works, or during the development process (it is recommended to do it as soon as it appears that the port will be successful), you have to push all your work to Replicant repositories. You need to ask for commit access to our repositories to be allowed to push your work. This means creating the repositories for your device, pushing your work to these and to the other repositories you modified and adding the new repositories to the manifest.

The Developer guide hold all the rules for naming repositories: make sure to act accordingly with these requirements!

The manifest holds the list of the repositories we use in each Replicant version. Its syntax is xml, so it's easy to add your new repositories.

Once your device is usable, you have to create documentation on the Replicant wiki to let others know about relevant material concerning the device, especially build and installation instructions. This is absolutely required before we can publish any image for your device!